While the African community in Guangzhou has taken to the streets to protest the suspicious death of a foreign national in police custody, the Chinese Internet has proven equally volatile as gruesome photos of a late-stage abortion have circulated online to the shock and horror of many netizens. This week Sinica turns its attention to both events, but mostly the one child policy, as we discuss first the history of China's family-planning restrictions and then look at the political forces within China arrayed for and against the status quo.

Trying to steer the discussion through these controversial waters is your host Kaiser Kuo, who is joined in our studio by Alexa Olesen, a long-time China watcher and journalist for the Associated Press who has written extensively on how China's family planning policies work at the local level. We're also delighted to be joined by Evan Osnos, staff writer for the New Yorker, who has written about the African community in Guangzhou. Conspicuously absent for the second week running is Sinica co-host Jeremy Goldkorn, who any minute now--and probably by the time you're reading this--will have become father to a baby girl named Viola!

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For the math question - if it is just math, then the ratio would stay 50/50. The problem is the realities is that there is real world complications such as (as mentioned) people aggresively trying to manage the sex of their 1st/2nd child

Your podcast has admirably covered the PSB's summertime crackdown and the unrest in Guangzhou. Another factor to add into the mix is, as state-controlled media is reporting, that the draft Exit-Entry Administration Law being deliberated by the National People’s Congress may be enacted as early as “late June.” Unfortunately, the most recent draft has not been released for public review and comment.

Press reports in April were that a second draft of the law was being considered by the NPC. It may cover topics such as a new category of visas for international talent; creation of a unified records system to track information regarding foreigners in China; and clarification of when work by foreigners is not authorized.

Global Times articles of June 20 and June 21 say the law may be finalized this month. But the NPC’s website still posts only the first draft of the law, which was released in December 2011.

It’s also not yet clear which provisions of the first draft of the law (e.g., fingerprinting of foreigners upon entering China and applying for residence permits; green card provisions; enhanced overstay and illegal employment penalties; etc.) remain in the second draft.

The NPC has reportedly increased its use of public comments and hearings over recent years. Chairman Wu Banguo has urged lawmakers to solicit advice from public and conduct in-depth research, and to find ways to enable the public to engage in the nation’s legislative processes. In 2008, the NPC Standing Committee announced that it would make public as standard procedure future drafts submitted to it for review and adoption.

The NPC should increase transparency by releasing the second draft and allowing for a period of public comment.

Hi guys, great podcast as usual! I'm an ethnomusicologist in Yunnan Province focusing on projects related to the Nuosu Yi, and in the villages I have visited the mandate seems to be you are allowed to have two children. However, if the first two are girls then you are allowed "one more opportunity 机会“ to have a boy (their words, not mine). It sounds like the rules really are changing all the time, but I wonder, is there some resource that promotes "official" state policy for birthing regulations at the provincial level, especially for minority groups?

I'd also like to recommend the final chapter in Erik Mueggler's book "The Age of Wild Ghosts: Memory, Violence, and Place in Southwest China." The chapter is entitled "A Shattered Gourd," and provides intimately personal insight into the coerced abortion process that is still so prevalent in many rural communities in China today. Thanks for covering this issue!

Anyone notice that fundamental freedoms and human rights as they relate to the one child policy were absent? Having the dissappointing podcast of morality precede this one and seeing morality drop over this issue shows sinica's lack of grounding and navigation when discussing the big (i.e. moral) issues. Once again, dissappointing.